Story:
The Awakening
Post: #4 "Arise Kumbhakarna!"
(100% work of fiction)
Jan12 2008
** Confidential message from Assam HM Dwarah to Home
Ministry Delhi **
Dear Home Minister,
The situation as it stands today in Assam and peripheral
states can be summed by as below:
* 451 fatalities in guwahati, 612 in shillong , approx 2500
injured. With central help we have managed to tide over the
immediate medical situation. CBI forensics has gathered
evidence and left for Delhi. delhi bomb disposal unit shall
remain in guwahati until further notice.
* Funeral of late CM Pujari and ministers Haque and Das was
held today. we have declared a week of state mourning.
* The Saraighat bridge is down. Initial estimates by army
and PWD engineers indicate 2 months to repair the roadway
and 3 months to get the railway back. The economy is
facing immense hardship and prices have already risen. In
my capacity as active CM, have instructed officials to
inspect shops at random and fine traders on the spot for
price gouging. However this in only a token step and price
gouging cannot be truly checked until the bridge is restored.
* road traffic is being rerouted via the jogighopa and
koliabhomora bridges. the road network from the first
towards guwahati on the south bank is however shaky and
cannot carry the same load as the severed NH37.
* BG rail traffic is coming via jogiphopa. MG traffic is
now terminated at Rangiya.
* Additional units of CRPF deployed to guard both bridges
on a continuous basis. movement of boat traffic banned
in the vicinity and CRPF on assault boats have
have deployed to enforce that. Shoot orders have been
issued on all violators.
* airports are functioning as normal under heavy CISF security.
* On June11, a caller claiming to be Ulfa supremo Paresh
Barua called up the office of the local daily "The Daily
Tribune" and claimed responsibility for the blasts. He
noted they were against the "hated symbols" of the
"colonial indian rule" viz the bridge through which he
accused the center of "looting" assam's resources, the
state govt complex in panbazar and the "consul of delhi"
the late CM himself.
He called upon all peoples of the north-east to rise once
and for all and throw off the "colonial yoke".
* Amnesty international and Human rights watch have accused
the assam govt and police of atrocities that lead to
these unfortunate attacks. BBC stringer in the region has
also lent his support to this unfair viewpoint.
* a UK based human rights org has sought to admit a notice
before the UN to urgently discuss the NE situation and
called for international community to intervene and
impose a "just settlement to the vexing sub-national
question"
* NLFT, NSCN and their coalition of terrorist orgs have
made statements in the media supporting the latest
upsurge and vowed to step up their attacks. As you
already know there is the crisis involved 400 hostages
in agartala and attacks on Govt facilities everywhere.
A rocket attack on the guwahati refinery was foiled last
night by alert police patrol. we have managed to keep it
out of the media for now.
* The people are angry and demoralized. They want to lash
out but have no idea against whom. Ulfa presents no
identifiable target. They are among us in disguise, they
dress like us, talk our language and move with us.
** recommendations & actions from the NE CMs **
after teleconferences with CMs of meghalaya, tripura,
mizoram, manipur and nagaland we jointly have the
following request for HMO to implement.
* sending additional central forces to try and guard
every potential target is not going to be a viable
solution. there are too many targets, too many ingress
routes and too many well paid / motivated sympathizers.
The enemy can keep this up by continuing to find our
vulnerable spots.
* the problem has to be tackled at the source and some
means found to either capture the terrorists in BD
or close their camps down and flush them into India
where we shall hunt them as we did in Bhutan in 2004.
* we are looking to Delhi for a suitable response to the
HR orgs and international interventionists.
* the economy of the region, already weak has become
weaker with these blows. no immediate recovery can be
forseen, whatever little interest in investment was
there have gone cold now. this is intolerable from our
pov because poverty will create more terrorist recruits.
* our state police and IB have found evidence beyond
doubt of ISI involvement in training and logistical
support to terrorist groups. Use of sympathetic elements
among the ex-BD people settled on the 'chars'(sandbars)
is routine, however due to the sensitive communal nature
of the issue we had not taken any action on that front.
* I have now ordered assam police and IB to jointly
launch a widespread cordon and search of the border
madrasas to identify suspect elements. Those whose
identity cannot be proven or pointed out as suspect by our
humint resources will be detained. however we shall not be
able to gather evidence that will stand up in court, so
at best this will only dislocate the network for a
month until their lawyers and the court steps in.
* the solution to NE terrorism now lies not in the NE but
in Bangladesh. Delhi has to somehow resolve this problem
it is beyond our power to do it. We stand ready to
extend all support whatever be the plan. For us NE CM's
it is a question of political survival now, the people
shall not tolerate such a widespread state failure on
the security and economic fronts. Prospects for our
Party in the next election would appear quite dim. A
separate note on this has been dispatched to High
Command via my personal emissary Mr Deuba who will meet
Madam tomorrow.
* in our assessment we are soon going to have a Kashmir
circa late 1990s situation if something is not done to stem
the tide. the danger signs are clear in terrorists dominating
large swathes of the countryside, running their own govt
systems, extorting at will, spreading the maoist poison among
gullible village youth, decimating the govt infrastructure
and intimidating govt employees.
* we earnestly urge the CCS to discuss threadbare these
issues , evolve a plan and take us into confidence at
the earliest.
Jai Hind!
yours sincerely
Anil Kumar Dwarah
cc: HMO file assam secretariat.
cc: CM's office tripura, meghalaya, mizoram, manipur,
nagaland.
Next: "The Conclave - fashioning of objectives"
most of it will be in the third person narrative because writing person to person dialogue and getting it right takes enormous amout of time and reworking for a person not experienced at it.
Their only role for now is to watch helplessly as chinese and pak planes overfly them. They have no AF worth the name. 
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